Candid O'Malley

A recent court filing contained some highly unflattering descriptions of former UFS chair and PSC executive committee member Susan O’Malley. Readers learned that some consider O’Malley:

• “a person of vicious, disreputable, criminal, and ‘terrorist’ character, who supports ‘terrorist’ activities at the present time in the United States, who actively goes out of her way to assist convicted criminals without regard for the CUNY academic community, who acts purely for her own selfish reasons, and not for the best interests of the academic community, who believes in those who practice or preach terrorism or violence and murder and has the ability or influence to secure jobs for criminals and ‘terrorists’ instead of and at the expense of decent upstanding citizens and law-abiding Americans.”

• “a thief, a person of dishonest and disreputable character, who works for her own selfish interests and against the best interests of the CUNY academic community, who improperly takes money and/or dues from the PSC and uses them for her own benefit, and further a person who dislikes and looks down on her academic colleagues and staff.”

• “unscholarly, lacking scholarly excellence, and characterize[es] her academic achievements dishonestly.”

• “a person of lazy and disreputable character, and who was working for her own selfish interests . . . She dislikes teaching, mistrusts her staff and colleagues, and is in all respects a person who has failed to contribute anything of value to her students, CUNY governance, and the CUNY academic community.”

• “a person of disreputable character, who participated in a demonstration in front of Chancellor Goldstein’s home and who advocated demonstrations of no value or merit for her own interest and against the interest of the CUNY academic community.”

None of those descriptions of O’Malley came from Sharad Karkhanis, the person that O’Malley is suing for $2 million in a lawsuit that she herself has described as “very, very silly.” Indeed, apart from the word “terrorists”—Karkhanis’ description of Susan Rosenberg and Mohammed Yousry, both of whom were convicted of terrorist-related activity—none of those words appeared in any Karkhanis publication to describe O’Malley.

Instead, these descriptions of O’Malley all come from O’Malley’s attorney, Joseph Martin Carasso, an entertainment law specialist that O’Malley prevailed upon to file her “very, very silly” lawsuit. Given that Carasso’s descriptions of O’Malley are far more severe than anything Karkhanis has written about her, will Carasso be next in line to experience an O’Malley lawsuit?

Perhaps that’s why Carasso had demanded—in what would be an extraordinary provision—a court order that “all pleadings, papers, exhibits and other matters filed with the Court in this action be sealed.”

Publius